The Future is Flexible

The forecast for 2015 looks good with the CBI forecasting 2.5% growth up on the previous year .This will be driven by an increase in business and housing investment and is very encouraging for the recruitment industry.

An REC survey in December 2014 showed that 84% of employers were planning to hire in 2015. Interestingly 93% of businesses stated that they had little or no space capacity to hire new people.

What does this mean for the sectors we work in? Our forecast for 2015 is optimistic.

We predict a notable increase in freelance and flexible working practices. Demand for specialists skills will continue to rise. We believe the technology industry will lead this. The increase in the need for these skills will be paired with a skills shortage and businesses will find themselves under pressure to be more flexible in their recruitment .

Job seekers will have more choice and we may see an increase in those that elect to work on freelance basis as opposed to permanent contracts, especially as they are more protected as temp workers than ever before. Furthermore some of these skills may only be sourced by people returning from maternity or paternity leave and employers may find that they need to be more flexible to work around childcare patterns if they want to retain the talent they have.

Remote working will increase with many employers being open about the option of working at home one to 2 days per week. This is a way of working round the limited space conundrum as employers still remain nervous about committing to larger premises on a long term basis. We will definitely hear more about hot desking and rotations in the coming year.

We’re encouraged with what our clients will be able to offer in terms of career opportunities in 2015 as they take on board the feedback that we have given them in 2014. We’d be interested in hearing from you if you have any of your own predictions for the year.